Sir Robert Archdale Parkhill (1878 - 1947), by Sidney Riley, 1927-37, courtesy of National Library of Australia. nla.pic-an23488310. .Image Details

PARKHILL, Sir ROBERT ARCHDALE (1878-1947), politician, was born on 27 August 1878 at Paddington, Sydney, son of Sydney-born Robert Parkhill, monumental stonemason, and his Scottish wife Isabella, née Chisholm. Educated at Paddington and Waverley Public schools, Parkhill was an excellent cricketer and an adept fencer, boxer and horse-rider. He was working as a clerk before he emerged as Alderman Archie Parkhill of Waverley Municipal Council in 1904-09. In 1904 he was appointed secretary of the Liberal and Reform Association of New South Wales, as the protégé of (Sir) Joseph Carruthers. On 9 May 1906 at Woollahra, Parkhill married Florence Ruth Watts.

Building on Carruthers' framework, Parkhill reformed the Liberal Party administration, imbuing it with a professionalism that made it and its National Party successor Australia's pre-eminent political machines. He ...

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Source:

Australian Dictionary of Biography